DDoS Attacks Overwhelm Targets With Ever Rising Data Floods

Nearly 21 percent of DDoS attacks are now 1G bps or higher, according to an Arbor Networks report on DDoS attack trends. Here are highlights from the report.

In the second quarter of 2015, Arbor reported an average attack size of 1.04G bps, which is a 29.4 percent increase over the first quarter. Peak attack size for the second quarter was reported at 196.35G bps.

In the second quarter, nearly 21 percent of all attacks were 1G bps or higher, up from 17.7 percent in the first quarter of the year.

June was a particularly busy month for DDoS attacks that were 50G bps or larger. According to Arbor, 99.2 percent of the attacks were SYN (synchronization) packet floods.

Attacks that are amplified by reflecting off a vulnerable or misconfigured service continues to be a popular attack route for DDoS. In the second quarter, the largest amplification attack size came by way of Network Time Protocol (NTP) reflection at 185.94G bps.

In terms of targets, France tops the list for DDoS reflection attacks at 13.7 percent of all attacks. Looking at attacks of 10G bps or larger, France’s share rises to 21.5 percent.

Arbor found that 34.9 percent of DDoS attacks are difficult to attribute due to data anonymization techniques. That said, of the 65.1 percent that can be sourced, the U.S. tops the list at 14 percent.

While attack bandwidth volume is on the rise, Arbor found that the average attack duration is actually declining. During the second quarter, the average attack duration was 58 minutes.